


Not Him

by toesohnoes



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-20
Updated: 2006-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-29 20:16:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toesohnoes/pseuds/toesohnoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angel’s starting to hate himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Angel hated himself for thinking it.

He hated himself for _daring_ to think it, while she was standing in just the other room.

How could he? He was a monster, but this was something else. His other monstrosities could be blamed on the demon that lurked beneath his skin, fighting for control. Those horrors were simple; murder, blood, sex. Simple.

But this…

He’d stared out the window of his office moments ago and wished that Cordelia was dead.

He hadn’t fantasised about killing her, or killing Wesley, like he sometimes did when he hadn’t had access to blood in a while. He didn’t imagine what it would be like to pin her to a wall and hold her still as he drained her. He didn’t envision the feel and taste of her blood on his tongue.

Instead, he looked out the window and wondered why she was still here when Doyle had died. It had seemed so logical to him, that she was the one that should have sacrificed herself. Doyle should have been leaning against the desk with him, the pair of them toasting their lost companion.

But there was a Doyle-shaped hole in their lives and a Cordelia-shaped woman in the office, and that was how things were meant to be.

That _was_ how things were meant to be.

Was that how things were meant to be?

He didn’t know anymore. The Oracles said yes. They said that Doyle had reached atonement. Good for him, woop-de-doo, what were the rest of them supposed to do? It was all very well for Doyle to swan off and die heroically and go off to heaven, but what about everyone else? Were they just supposed to go on?

Apparently, yes.

It didn’t make sense. They’d had someone come into their lives and change everything, not just with his visions but also with his smiles and his jokes and his barely there kisses.

Now he was gone and Angel wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do next. Carry on, fight the good fight? There hardly seemed to be any point. He fought, but the people that mattered still died.

He wished he’d had a different seer. Someone less special, less perfect. Someone who drank less and smiled less and told less jokes and was less _Irish_ and less Doyle. Then maybe this wouldn’t hurt so badly.

He looked down at the glass in his hand – whiskey, the cheap stuff that Doyle used to smell of, that he used to taste of. Angel had kept a bottle in his desk since the man had died, never touching it but always wanting to. He didn’t want to get drunk. He just wanted to get one step closer to Doyle, and two steps closer to forgetting him.

“Happy anniversary, Doyle,” he whispered to the empty room. At his desk, the diary proved his words right – it had been exactly one year since his friend had taken that fatal jump to save all their lives.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written at my [Tumblr](http://toestastegood-fic.tumblr.com/post/19411381626/it-could-have-gone-differently-if-angels-path).

It could have gone differently.

If Angel’s path hadn’t led him to Sunnydale, if Doyle’s visions had brought them together earlier, their lives could have been easier. A little less damaged, a little more hope, and they could have saved themselves from the stumbles along the way. The Powers That Be could have saved them.

Sometimes, Angel thinks about that. He sits in the dark and thinks about the life that they could have led.

They could have fought side by side. They could have saved the world and saved each other while they did it.

His hand curls into a fist. There’s no battle here. There’s nobody to fight: there’s no way to bring him back.

All he has is the dark, the shadows and memories that will diminish over time.

Their side has sustained a loss, but the good fight goes on.

Angel hates it for that. He hates it all.


End file.
